Robot Revolution: The one that's the good Transformers movie

 

 

Title: Bumblebee aka Transformers: Bumblebee

What Year?: 2018

Classification: Weird Sequel

Rating: That’s Good! (4/4)

 

As I write this, my channels have been a bit quiet, enough that the biggest news is a new entry in a franchise everyone has been saying they want to end but won’t stop putting money into. It also happens that I had been considering one particular entry for my semi-randomized survey of robot films. Without further preamble, I’m diving in. Here’s Bumblebee, the Transformers movie people actually liked, and as far as I’m concerned, the only other entry worth any attention was the one with Orson Welles as the Death Star.

Our story begins with the fall of the world of Cybertron to the Decepticons, during which the heroic Bumblebee escapes to Earth. That leads to a three-way fight with a Decepticon and a persistent military man, in which the sympathetic bot’s voice box is disabled. He goes to ground as a piece-of-kaka VW Beetle in what turns out to be the actual 1980s time frame of the original franchise. He finds a friend in a spunky teenage girl named Charlie who tries fixing up the Bug and is surprisingly cool with both discovering a robot from an alien civilization and legally owning a sentient AI. Soon, they bond over Eighties pop culture, and Charlie opens up about her actually moving tragic backstory. But the Decepticons are closing in, aided by a fair-weather alliance with the military over our military man’s objections. Robots will fight, character will be built, and cliches will actually be used effectively. And to quote/ rip off Brandon’s Cult Movies, congratulations, your toys sold well enough for you to live!

Bumblebee was a 2018 science fiction/ drama film directed by Travis Knight, previously known for animated films including Kubo, from a script by Christina Hodson.  It was the 6^th film in the live-action Transformers franchise by producer Michael Bay, and considered a prequel to the preceding films. The film starred Hailee Steinfeld as Charlie and Angela Bassett as the voice of the villainess Shatter, with John Cena and John Ortiz as the government men. Other voice cast included Justin Theroux as the hench-bot Dropkick and Peter Cullen in a limited role as Optimus Prime. The film was a commercial success, earning $468 million worldwide against a $135M budget, and was well-received by critics and fans as the best entry in the franchise. A direct sequel has reportedly been in development. In June 2023, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts was released as a second authorized prequel, without the involvement of Steinfeld or other cast and characters from Bumblebee.

For my experiences, I have already gotten a lot of ranting about Transformers out of my system with toy blogging and my review of the animated film (see also the Gobots movie…). The bottom line has always been that I liked the idea of the Transformers better than the toys, and I clean missed out on any incarnation of the TV franchise. When it comes to films, the 1986 cartoon had enough sheer weirdness to impress me, and the original live-action film was good enough for a viewing or so. After that, I completely bailed on the cinematic franchise until the present film came along. I saw it in theaters, and it earned what was for me somewhat grudging respect. In the time since, I’ve given it a fair number of repeat viewings, which if anything have improved my opinion. Saying it’s the best Transformers movie may be an easy joke, but this is far more; it’s one of the best recent treatments of robotics/ artificial intelligence to come out of what can still be considered the “mainstream” studio system. In those terms, the only other films to appear here that even suggest themselves for comparison are M3GAN and Robot and Frank, and those already set the bar very high indeed.

Moving forward, the one thing to get out of the way is that mustering goodwill for this one is going to require a high tolerance for both the franchise assumed mythology and general 1980s pop culture. The latter is where the “mainstream” description starts to feel like a “con” rather than a “pro” (also an admitted issue with Robot And Frank). What the film has going for it is a feel of sincerity rather than, or at least in addition to, the presumption of nostalgia that will definitely be hit or miss for people like me who were actually around in the Eighties. The bots are allowed to be truly good and very evil, and their battles see victories and defeats for both sides throughout the movie. It’s of further note that the stop-motion veteran director knows how to portray the bots in real-world environments in ways that make it clear who they are and who’s winning. The humans are the weaker element, but for once, it’s not because they are an underwritten afterthought. The problem is that there’s nothing here we haven’t seen before, a fact that is amplified by the frequent references and inside jokes. The payoff is that we can actually get to like these characters far more as the story goes along. The standout to me is Ortiz, a prolific character actor in a typically disposable role, whose character by any fair appraisal proves himself by far the most intelligent here without considering that he’s applying the rules of chess to a rugby match.

Meanwhile, the thing that has to be talked about for this feature in particular is Bumblebee himself, an absolutely first-rate “sympathetic” bot. Again, it’s especially noteworthy that this is done with an animator in the director’s chair (and a woman as writer to boot), and the character shows everything that can be brought to the table: He has distinctive features, mannerisms and an expressive face. The most interesting part of the setup is his lack of speech, which to me could have been all the more intriguing if it was a permanent part of his personality rather than a posited physical (mechanical???) injury. (On the gruesome side, aphasia is a very real problem for victims of major head trauma…) The results are a little hit or miss, with a high proportion of cutesy pratfalls and still more pop-culture references. In form for the film, the premise gets fully developed into what becomes a thoughtful portrayal of nonverbal/ preverbal intelligence. It’s especially striking to see the bot contextualize music and audio snippets to express himself and draw out his human counterpart. For that matter, there’s dark irony in the further contrast with the highly articulate and very anthropomorphic villainess, who proves that familiarity in no way reduces menace.

That leaves the “one scene”, and this is a rare case of a scene that upped the rating. Partway through, Charlie ends up at a beach party where someone brings up the established backstory that she was once on the school diving team. When one of the jerks takes a dive that would definitely not be safe if you don’t happen to have a topographical map, the gathered kids cheer for Charlie to do the same. The parked Transformer joins in, bumping her with an open door and playing an egregious track from the animated film. We get all the Eighties movie buildup as the spunky heroine goes to the edge… and then walks right back. It’s a calculated anticlimax, and what impressed me enough to raise my opinion of the whole movie is that this is contextualized as Charlie absolutely in the right. It’s a moment that proves a film can both use cliches and subvert them effectively. It’s just right to bring this one from 3 to a (kind of) perfect 4.

In closing, this is a case where I’ve already covered everything, for once including the rating. Enough time has passed to say that this is not a “great” movie, but it would not be at all surprising if the next five to ten years sees it hailed as a “classic”, which has certainly not been the case with any other live-action incarnation of the franchise. On its own, it might be no more or less than “pretty good”, but after what came before, it’s the kind of film where just being adequate would be enough for a seasoned viewer to kiss the ground. Sometimes, you have to take what you can get, and fortunately, this is one that more than delivers. My highest compliment is that I’m glad to have gotten to it. “I’ve got better things to do tonight than die!”